OK – January’s gone, February’s here, are you making progress towards your goals or are you still figuring out what goals to make? If your’re still on the fence, you’re not alone. Most of us know this, about 20% of the population make goals and only about 3% actually write them down. I kept my goals in my head. I avoided writing anything down because I thought that if I didn’t meet those goals I’d only beat myself up. Many of us feel that way and are afraid to admit it.

That’s all changed for me. I discovered that by creating “life” or personal goals – where I wanted to go in life – I was able to clearly see where I wanted to go and set some realistic goals I could achieve. I didn’t use the SMART method. I developed a 3-step process that I shared on last week’s webinar.

You can do the same. It’s simple, effective and takes the pressure off you. Here’s the 3 steps:

Discover your “unsyncable” zones.

Toss out what’s not working.

Create your new roadmap to success.

If you want to find out how you can use this process for yourself or your friends, you can listen in here:

We are on the brink of 2014 and you’re probably asking yourself – “what am I going to do differently in 2014 to make it a great year?” My question to you is – “what are you going to do next year that you are meant to do?”

You see back in 2006 I was laid off from my job. That day my girlfriend said to me “Finally you’re going to do what you’re meant to do!” Back then I had no idea what she meant. Today I am doing what I believe I was meant to do and loving it. It took a lot of introspection, trial and error. Little did I know it was – teaching.

What will you do that is “on purpose, that you are meant to do?”

It needn’t be big and bold. It does have to be meaningful to you and make a difference to others. So many of us go through our careers thinking that this is it. For some, it is, for others it’s not. For example, a few years ago a successful friend of mine left a great engineering job because it no longer served him. He took a risk. He now has a successful business of teaching executives to relax through yoga and meditation. He is successful, happy and in service to others.

Strong personal leadership is about finding what you were destined to do. Take some time over the next few days to look at where you are, where you want to go and what you were destined to do. If you are already there, congratulations! If not, this is the perfect time to make a change. Do a little introspection.

By the way, you can find out how I discovered my purpose in “Excuse me, I’m being Audacious – Embracing Personal Leadership in Business and in Life”.

On this morning’s news it was announced that Nelson Mandela’s health is quickly failing. How sad. He brought about so much change to South Africa. He brought that change through peace.

Mandela hadn’t always used a peaceful approach. He spent many years in a jail cell no bigger than a closet for co-founding a militant group and bombing government targets. During those years in jail he shifted back to using peace as a means to bring about change.

This is a perfect example of how force does not bring about change. The same can be applied in the in the business world. Instilling fear and abusing positional power causes resentment not change. This is workplace bullying and it’s a bigger problem than you think. Rather than force use quiet persuasion. Explain why the change is necessary and how the other person will benefit.

If you see or hear anyone being bullied either through words or actions, as a leader it is your responsibility to stop it. You, the leader, can start the change.

I came across this quote by Chief Dan George and thought how well it relates to leaders:

“If you talk to the animals, they will talk with you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys.”

What a powerful statement! The same can be applied to humans. If you talk to your people, they will talk with you and you will know each other. Getting to know each other is essential to building working partnerships.

I think many leaders, whether they are managers, supervisors or are any type of leadership role, tend to think that they should keep their distance to be seen as “the leader”. The opposite is true. When you as a leader take time to talk to and understand your people you show true strength and that makes you a leader people want to follow. I should know, I was one.

Take a few minutes to connect to and talk to at least one colleague, staff member or employee. You will be rewarded two-fold.

The other day I made a complaint to the service department of a large store that had delivered some furniture to us. The reason was that the technician did not show up to do the touch ups on the wood as promised. You’ve probably found yourself in a similar situation.

The person at the counter spoke to me from behind her computer barely looking up. I thought this was rude. Normally I would have been angry and passed judgment on her poor behavior. This time I chose to pay attention to what might be going on for her. She certainly didn’t look happy. She actually looked like she wasn’t feeling well. Was that an excuse for a poor attitude? I chose not to judge her attitude and treated her with respect.

The next day I went back with the bill for the touch up stick she had suggested we purchase to get reimbursed. She was a completely different person – polite, friendly and very helpful. I found out that she was on the firing line for complaints because the store had hired third parties to do certain work that very often was not getting done. We had a great conversation and I left her feeling that she had been understood. We all want to be understood.

When a manager or leader judges the behavior of an employee, that person usually does not feel good about themselves or their manager. That results in poor performance and a poor attitude.

Great leaders don’t judge. When you find yourself in that situation pause and find out what’s going on in their world that could cause the negative behavior. You’ll gain their respect.